Youtube- The curious origins of (the words for) imperial and metric units

[mickeyf]

re: traffic circles / roundabouts

The great thing about these (safety wise) is that no matter where you enter from, you always exit with a right turn. You never have to turn across a lane of oncoming traffic. (OK, in the UK or Australia, a left turn. But same principle.)

I think this is the bridge you're thinking about:

 

[gerritv]

I showed you an easy go-around to stay off of the Burlington Skyway. I can give you more options to bypass large bridges in my neighbourhood during our next GTHA & Niagara field trip.

PS - There are also easy ways to stay off of the Garden City Bridge. Next trip to Niagara i will show you a couple of options.

Except when the bridge is up for 30 minutes for a freighter that is still 3 km out in the lake :-(
Bypassing the Garden City Bridge will take you into the wonders of the Glendale Diverging Interchange. I intentionally still haven't experienced that. https://www.niagaradev.ca/profiles/notl/divergingdiamond

 

[6.5 Fan]

When a job includes a ladder i always stay on the ground. Somebody has to be able to call 911.

 

[gerritv]

In Nederland the measure system was also very interesting pre- SI metric metric.

Dutch units of measurement - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Chicken lights]

I'm 95% sure I went over a no truck bridge leaving Montreal last week 😀

If people could drive/taught the rules of the road, roundabouts probably work fine. As they do in Europe. They work fine in the Midwest (mostly) where's there's less traffic. But in high traffic areas in Ontario they just cause grief and confusion, largely due to them being new and how to use them is vague

 

[Doggggboy]

largely due to them being new and how to use them is vague

My first ever experience with roundabouts was in New Zealand driving on the wrong for me side of the car while on the wrong for me side of the road while still adjusting to being newly blind in my right eye. When we arrived in NZ I asked our host what the rules were for roundabouts. He said "It's easy. The people on the roundabout always have the right of way. Don't eff it up"

 

[L98Fiero]

I'm 95% sure I went over a no truck bridge leaving Montreal last week 😀

If people could drive/taught the rules of the road, roundabouts probably work fine. As they do in Europe. They work fine in the Midwest (mostly) where's there's less traffic. But in high traffic areas in Ontario they just cause grief and confusion, largely due to them being new and how to use them is vague

We vacationed in Vietnam and Cambodia a couple of months ago, in Hanoi we went through a roundabout, thankfully in a bus, where the cars and almost everything went the right way, but some were going against the traffic. Driving there would be an experience not everyone would enjoy, but then we didn't see any accidents.

 

[gerritv]

Like this? (2011 visit to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City) The recommendation to crossing the street was to start walking, the traffic woulld go around you as long as you kept moving.

 

[L98Fiero]

Like this? (2011 visit to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City) The recommendation to crossing the street was to start walking, the traffic woulld go around you as long as you kept moving.

Yes, like that. They did say to keep walking, and it works, but they also said don't try that with buses.
There are 4 million cars in Hanoi and 6 million scooters and motorcycles, they limit them to 250cc, and they will go through place you wouldn't think possible, at speed you wouldn't think possible with a family of three onboard.

 

[StevSmar]

Would there be any truth that Canadian engineers would struggle with overpasses?

Zero truth, I’ve yet to work on an overpass project that didn’t have an all Canadian design team.

 

[StevSmar]

But in high traffic areas in Ontario they just cause grief and confusion, largely due to them being new and how to use them is vague

Roundabouts are not the solution to all traffic problems. The don’t work well when the traffic volumes are not relatively balanced. They do tend to have less severe accidents which are mostly slow speed. Traffic Signals appear to often have the highest number of severe accidents.

Having driven on multi-lane roundabout in Australia, I’m of the opinion that roundabouts should never be more than two lanes (I’d prefer one lane only…). The rule I followed was never drive next to someone while in the roundabout because you don’t know when they will change lanes and they won’t see you.

 

[Chicken lights]

Zero truth, I’ve yet to work on an overpass project that didn’t have an all Canadian design team.

You said design team. How much leeway do engineers get to design things? I'm guessing you could suggest things all you want, until budget or city council or provincial says no?

 

[StevSmar]

How much leeway do engineers get to design things?

I’m not sure what you mean.

I'm guessing you could suggest things all you want, until budget or city council or provincial says no?

Perhaps it’s due to legislation? All engineering projects in Manitoba must be done by an Engineer licensed in Manitoba and I bet all the other provinces are the same. Obtaining a license for another province isn’t onerous. However, I’ve had a couple of coworkers obtain their license for the US and that process sounded painful, so perhaps the reciprocal is also true and that’s what stops American Engineering firms bidding on projects in Canada?

In my previous employment I have worked on a couple of projects where we bought in specialists from another country. There was lots of cost in doing that so unless the expertise isn’t available in Canada, it’s cheaper to use a design team is all Canadian.

All the interchange projects I’ve worked on have had an all Canadian design team, so there is zero truth that Canadian Engineers would struggling with Overpass design.

 

[MrWhoopee]

I am always surprised that people seem to dispense with the “imperial system” and say Canada is all metric. If so?!, why can’t I get metric drill bits / like anywhere??? My boys work in the gas fitting business and it is all 3” or 4” or other “inch” dimensions….. no metric going on at all!

Perhaps it's something similar to a quote I heard once:
"Pity the plight of poor Mexico, so close to the United States, so far from God."

Like this? (2011 visit to Saigon/Ho Chi Minh City) The recommendation to crossing the street was to start walking, the traffic woulld go around you as long as you kept moving.

Fred sent my wife and me to an auction (read vacation) in Penang, Malaysia. We hired a trishaw driver to take us on a tour of the temples etc. in Georgetown. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the extremely chaotic traffic, and my wife was freaking out at the numerous near misses. To calm her down, I reassured her that "they can't kill us, we're on vacation."

Roundabouts have become common here in California in the last couple of decades. For the most part they work pretty well, although traffic doesn't flow as quickly as it could. Too many people are still baffled by them. I agree that any more than two lanes just creates a hazard to navigation.

 

[Chicken lights]

I’m not sure what you mean.

You say design team- can engineers specify traffic calming methods? Or are they specifically tasked with just engineering the road/intersection/overpass?

Perhaps it’s due to legislation? All engineering projects in Manitoba must be done by an Engineer licensed in Manitoba and I bet all the other provinces are the same.

All the interchange projects I’ve worked on have had an all Canadian design team, so there is zero truth that Canadian Engineers would struggling with Overpass design.

Good point. I wondered if there was a "building code" for our roads and that's what limits our engineers?

 

[Ishmael]

If people could drive/taught the rules of the road, roundabouts probably work fine. As they do in Europe. They work fine in the Midwest (mostly) where's there's less traffic. But in high traffic areas in Ontario they just cause grief and confusion, largely due to them being new and how to use them is vague

Speaking of Ontario, there was once a traffic circle (they didn't call it a "roundabout") at the Stoney Creek end of the Burlington Bay Skyway. It was there in the '60s and into the '70s when you still had to pay a toll to cross the bridge. They took it out sometime in the '70s, I believe, and now no one even remembers it.
In September, 1965, my father was trying to go from Vineland to Kingston via the QEW and kept going around the circle, trying to find the way to Toronto. He saw the Burlington St. exit and thought they were trying to send him to Burlington, though he was on the right track. I remember he drove across the QEW median twice to have another crack at the traffic circle. Great fun for 18-year-old me, almost heart failure for my old man....

 

[Susquatch]

I generally like traffic circles myself as long as there is nobody in front of me. I think @Chicken lights is right about education. It will prolly take a generation for the majority to learn to use them properly.

I always seem to get stuck behind someone who thinks they can't enter the circle cuz someone else is already in there on the opposite side or that the folks waiting to their right and left have the right of way.

Then there are the ones who don't read or know what the lane signs mean.

And the ones to the entry left of you who get pissed at you cuz you entered the same time they did.

I'm not hopeful that I'll live long enough to see them used to their potential.

 

[Chicken lights]

Keep in mind the general public is impatient and don't interact well with trucks. If I have a trailer on, trucks are supposed to take two lanes and lane split. People behind don't always know that, get confused and try to get around. There's one on my way home, on the other side where I exit there's two lanes for about a mile, I try to sit in the shorter RH lane to let the goobers fly by.

By lane splitting, I'm taking the right of way control from both lanes. If you ever see an oversized load doing that, it's for that reason.

 

[jorogi]

I generally like traffic circles myself as long as there is nobody in front of me. I think @Chicken lights is right about education. It will prolly take a generation for the majority to learn to use them properly.

I always seem to get stuck behind someone who thinks they can't enter the circle cuz someone else is already in there on the opposite side or that the folks waiting to their right and left have the right of way.

Then there are the ones who don't read or know what the lane signs mean.

And the ones to the entry left of you who get pissed at you cuz you entered the same time they did.

I'm not hopeful that I'll live long enough to see them used to their potential.

The education needed is for the designers, around here no two circles are the same and they seem to think circles are cool so we'll do one where there are better alternatives.

 

[Susquatch]

The education needed is for the designers, around here no two circles are the same and they seem to think circles are cool so we'll do one where there are better alternatives.

I THINK.... there was federal money available to municipalities to build infrastructure and traffic circles were given as an example of an eligible project, so there are lots of traffic circles built where none are needed.

Free money + hire local contractors + generate local revenue + lots of local contractors = lots of traffic circles.